Surface fissure, first detected by InSAR

Once the Bam earthquake fault was revealed by a radar interferogram, Morteza Talebian and Hamid Nazari of the Geological Survey of Iran undertook a field survey in this area south of Bam. Their field photograph shows the surface fissuring along the fault due to the earthquakes, with offsets of up to 20cm. (This is much smaller than the two meters of slip that occurred on the fault deeper down.) The photo shows that the area is almost completely flat and featureless. This is why the existence of the fault was unknown before the earthquake ruptured and fissured the ground.